The Crime
by Minor God
Summary: When Bertie falls victim to a terrible crime, Jeeves realises he must take matters into his own hands. Warnings for rape and violence.
1. Chapter 1

Title: The Crime  
Rating: NC-17. Including violence and graphic sexual scenes (not in this chapter, but soon).  
Summary: When Bertie falls victim to a terrible crime, Jeeves has to take matters into his own hands.  
Pairings: Jeeves/Bertie, Bingo/Bertie  
Disclaimer: Not a plum.

* * *

Jeeves raised no eyebrow when his master hadn't returned that morning. It was not his place, after all, and gentlemen of Mr Wooster's age were not unknown to stay out until daybreak at times of special revelry. In fact, he was probably even less moved than he would normally be by such an occurrence: relations between employer and employed were not over-friendly at present, owing to the former's recent acquisition of a black fedora with a purple band. Being thus unmoved, Jeeves merely re-made the un-slept in bed and laid the breakfast in the living room for it's owner's return.

When he paid it a visit later in the day and found it unclaimed, the eyebrow still remained firmly placed. Jeeves was not a vindictive man, but he couldn't help cultivating an idea that the hangover Mr Wooster was undoubtedly undergoing would teach him to go out in public with a purple-banded hat. Nor did he so much as scratch his head when the lunch came to a similar fate. Not long after, however, was when the cataclysm began: Jeeves answered the phone.

"Oh hello, Jeeves," came the sunny tones of Mr Little, the young master's childhood friend. "Mr Wooster about?"

"No, sir," replied Jeeves slowly. "I was given to understand that he was with you, sir."

"With me? No; no I was just ringing, I have something dashed important to tell him about this new brand of cigarettes-"

All of a sudden, Jeeves felt his vigorous feudal spirit flicker momentarily, like he would when listening to the ramblings of a man twenty years younger than himself at a cobbler's. "You mean to say he's not with you?" he snapped.

The young man fell silent, evidently shocked by the tone. "Definitely not, Jeeves. I waved goodbye to him last night at the Drones and he has been decidedly not with me ever since."

"Then where is he?"

Bingo was not at all taken with this lapse in courtesy. "How should I know? I told you, I left early. Why, what's the matter?"

Allowing his mouth to droop very slightly, very momentarily, Jeeves picked himself back up. There was no use letting standards slip. "I fear, sir, that Mr Wooster has not returned to the flat all evening. I made so bold as to assume he was lodging with you, as he does on some occasions..."

A small shiver was heard at the end of the line. Bingo knew with acute shame the inference that had been launched against him. It was not at all uncommon for he and Bertie to fall in together in the early hours, wine-sodden, and find themselves re-enacting the scenes from their schooldays that had given them so much comfort in each other's affections. Neither of them ever meant it to lead anywhere, but at the same time, was sure that this last shred of childish reassurance was something they could hardly live without. He gathered himself. "Jeeves, Mr Wooster certainly didn't spend the night here; for if he did, I would not have attempted to contact him there."

"Very good, sir. Might I enquire if you have any idea where he might be?"

"No." Both voices lost some of their fortitude. "H-how long has he been gone?"

"Since eight o'clock last night, sir."

"Well I can vouch for him until ten; we were together at the Drones. Then I left for an early night, and Bertie was talking to an Oxford pal of his."

Feeling encouraged, Jeeves said "Indeed, sir?"

"Indeed. I'm sorry, I couldn't tell you who it was – I didn't know him myself. I remember he wasn't a member, he was signed in by a pal of his, who was. Er, I'm sorry, now I think of it, I can't think who the pal's pal was, either... Dreadfully sorry."

"Not at all, sir," said Jeeves, although his tones levelled to their former sobriety. "I am sure Mr Wooster can look after himself."

Then, there was a dead silence. Clearly both men had thought the same thing simultaneously. Whatever Bertram Wooster's many wonderful personality traits, he'd never been accused of being independently-minded or overly-scrupulous. The two men exchanged light-hearted goodbyes, but it was not an hour later when the police arrived at the door. They had been sent, they said, by a Mr Richard Little, who had appealed to them about a missing friend. They were two men – an older one, and a younger. Inviting them in listlessly, Jeeves could not help but be struck by the younger's resemblance to his master: not so much in appearance, but in that same, open, unabashed clumsiness of manner that Jeeves had found so endearing, that day last year when he first stood on the doormat. Constable Linton was the name of this over-grown adolescent, and Inspector Graham his senior. They prodded the flat for a lethargic half-hour, disrupting Jeeves' careful utopia of cleanliness one mis-placed-object-that-proved-not-to-be-evidence at a time. At last, Graham announced wearily that no evidence was to be found.

"Could you describe this Mr Wooster for us please, sir?" he drawled, while the younger one fumbled open his notebook.

Jeeves coughed slightly. The way in which he identified his master was scarcely likely to be of any good to the police. How he could he tell them to search for an amusingly gangly child-like man with a smile that lit up the room? "Mr Wooster is a tall gentleman, of six-foot-two-inches tall, and a light build, taking trousers in a twenty-eight-inch waist. His hair is blonde, erring very slightly on the auburn and his eyes are blue. He has an exceedingly pleasant demeanour," he tailed off.

"Blonde hair, blue eyes, pleasant dem-eee-nor," muttered Constable Linton, scribbling hard.

"Does it all check out with Mr Little's description?" Graham barked.

"Sir, yesssir."

"Right then. Mr Jeeves, thank you for your help. We must emphasise the importance of keeping a, a...." Words seemed to fail him.

"Perspective, inspector?" Jeeves offered.

"Perspective, yeah," grunted Graham. Then, regaining his

The officers turned to leave, but just as he was showing them out, Jeeves's conscience suddenly yelped out inside him and he flung himself in their path.

"Inspector," he addressed Graham. "I perhaps should venture to say this in my station, but I feel that the investigation, if any, may warrant a little more detail into the-"

"You got something else to say, sir?" Graham cut across him.

Jeeves saw that the situation did not call for the delicate feudal spirit just at present. For the first time, in many years, Jeeves stammered. "Sir. Mr Wooster is a very good man. A very, very good man. But... I mean to say, he is not altogether intelligent." He waited some sort of repercussion, but the faces of the policeman were stony. "The summation of these two qualities is that Mr Wooster is frequently given to be very open with persons unknown to him – put very simply, he believes everyone is as good and as honest as he is himself. If you'll pardon my presumption to say so, I believe this may make him vulnerable to dubious characters he meets in a social situation. You are aware that Mr Wooster had been drinking last night?"

"We got the full story from Mr Little, yes, sir," said Graham.

Had he been in a more indulgent mood, Jeeves may have given way to a regretful sigh. As it was, he held his resolve, and bowed the policemen out.

The sweltering summer's day gave way to night, and Mr Wooster did not come home. Jeeves laid his dinner out and stood by it attentively; it usually took Mr Wooster and his robust young appetite about twenty-three minutes to polish off a good meal. After this time, Jeeves cleared away. There were no telephone calls, but he reminded himself not to be disappointed about this – he was a servant, after all. If the police had any news, it would first go to Mr Little and to the Wooster clan (Mrs Travers, he sincerely hoped).

At eleven forty-five, when the young master usually retired, Jeeves switched off the lights. As he did, he looked around the room, lingering, inexplicably, at the empty piano – would Mr Wooster be sitting there now? He turned away quickly: thinking of that lead him to thinking of where he might be sitting now, and the endless pit of possibilities was unbearable. He just wished to dear God that whatever had happened, he hadn't departed his young friend's side with the words "By all means wear that hat if you wish to be taken for an effeminate New York gangster, sir."


	2. Chapter 2

On the third day of Mr Wooster's absence, Mrs Travers came to London. "Stupid little blighter," she huffed as Jeeves showed her into the living room. Her hair was unkempt, and the usual rose of her cheeks was dark and hot. Jeeves offered her tea, standing to wait on her, but she bade him to sit beside her on the sofa. They held each other's eye solemnly, but characteristically, Mrs Travers wasted no time. "From what I gather, Jeeves," she said slowly, "Bertie had no reason whatsoever for choosing to be, as he might say, conspic by his a?"

Momentarily Jeeves was silent. The reference to his young master's ludicrous slang had touched him. "Indeed, Mrs Travers, I believed Mr Wooster to be very happy in his current way of life." He hoped, at least.

"You can't think he'd have any debts or any enemies or that sort of thing?"

"No, Mrs Travers."

"Well I'm dashed glad to hear you say that, Jeeves, nor can I. The whole thing's entirely incomprehensible. What's your best bet – lying drunk somewhere?"

Jeeves swallowed hard. "That is what I would prefer to believe, madam. However, I think that, had Mr Wooster this impetuousness in his nature, we would have had occasion to notice it before. Mr Wooster is a young man who enjoys a stable life; I have never before known him to stay away from home for three consecutive days and nights, and I believe that being such a considerate employer, he would not place undue concern on me by leaving me uninformed if he chose to do so."

"He's never spent the night away without telling you before?"

"Not, at least, to my knowledge, madam." A shadow fell in from the window – from some object high on the horizon – and snuck with agonising sloth across the carpet.

Dahlia was the first to resume. "Earlier, Jeeves, I paid a visit to Mr Little."

"Indeed, madam?"

"He's given a set of descriptions to the police: did you know Bertie was last seen speaking to two men in that club of his?"

For a fleeting moment, Jeeves' eyes clenched shut, rebelling against him, denying the existence of the outside world. Suspects. There were suspects. "Mr Little told me the story, yes, madam." His voice seemed to him to echo, as though he were hearing it from behind a distant door.

Dahlia grunted what were apparently private opinions about Mr Little's conduct that evening. "What he's said is that we're looking for two blokes: One a lanky feller with longish brown hair and a velvet waistcoat – sort of a bohemian. And the other a very tall, broad specimen with wavy red hair. He knows neither of their names. They ring any bells with you?"

Jeeves shook his head. Did Mr Wooster have any friends that he, his trusted gentleman, did not know about? It was entirely possible, but incomprehensibly, he found the notion unbearable to entertain – Mr Wooster told him everything, said a dark, defiant voice inside his ear – Mr Wooster would never keep this from me.

"The dark chap's supposed to be a Drones member," Mrs Travers' robust physical voice drowned out Jeeves' internal one. "But the police've already checked the book and can find no signatures that should arouse suspicion, everyone who signed in was a regular."

"Everyone, madam?" Jeeves, while not actually slouching, had not felt entirely up to his usual standard of deportment all day, but now he felt his spine straighten. "Mr Little informed me that the red-headed gentleman was signed in by his friend, and that both claimed to have been friends of Mr Wooster at Oxford."

Hearing this, Dahlia too, felt a certain ignition. "Did he, by Jove? Then surely someone who was there ought to know who they were! If not, they're fraudsters, simple as that!" Then, all enthusiasm was dead. Fraudsters, of course, forboded things more sinister; things which Dahlia read in Jeeves' eyes as they turned to glass. "Well, we might be getting right ahead of ourselves, Jeeves," she added, although she sounded as if she were trying hard to convince herself. "These might well be two old friends he's gone on a huge ran-tan with."

"We can but hope."

"Are you missing him?"

The abruptness of the question took Jeeves by surprise – a thing less than a handful had witnessed and still lived to tell the tale. Before he could appropriate it, the answer had escaped his lips. "Forgive me, madam," he added, the form returning to his speech, "but in caring for so long a time for such a kind employer as Mr Wooster, one often experiences a strengthened connection."

"You're fond of him, you mean?"

"I am indeed."

The shadow, whatever it was, had disappeared and bright light shone filled every crevice in the room. But to its inhabitants, the light felt hot and sickly and heavy, like something one could drown in, pressing on their exposed hands and faces. Simultaneously, as though to avoid the fate, they stood up. Dahlia explained that she must be leaving, and promised regular updates on what the police would tell her.

"What're you doing now?" she asked with a feigned airiness. "Taking a quick holiday while the cat's away?"

"No madam," said Jeeves, not to be out-performed in nonchalance, "I am preparing Mr Wooster's dinner."

They locked eyes in the doorway, but Dahlia departed without another word.

Before that afternoon, it had seemed ludicrous to Jeeves that he should be expected to do anything other than carry out his routine just as he would if the young master were in bed, about to rise at any moment. It had seemed blatant to him that the flat must be kept spotless, the food must always be well-prepared, and the clothes must always be laid out pristine after the bath was drawn daily at its usual time, for at any given second of the hour, then day, then week, he may come back, doubtless in need of refreshment and clean clothes. In the general upkeep of his routine, Jeeves excelled. Standards could not be allowed to slip, and they certainly did not; it was the specific duties that began to cut at him.

Waking an absent master from a sterile bed, for instance. Where had the boy (as Jeeves occasionally allowed himself to think of him) slept last night? Would he awake to the happy hum of the metropolis he loved; would the sun be on his face?

Would he wake at all?

On the day after Mrs Traver's visit (the fourth day, as it were), Jeeves stood over the bed holding the tea that would normally bring the young master from the horizontal to the vertical. And this day was different. Jeeves knew that he had washed all the bed linen in the house. Laying the tray on the bedside table next to the unopened cigarette box, it seemed to him that his one desire in the world was to collapse into that bed and feel the boy's sweet, soapy scent in his nostrils. He wanted to fall to his knees, clasping at the sheets as a last remnant of contact with him, to cradle them and cry, and lie there undisturbed, remembering. And he had washed the sheets.

More friends called round, wanting to help (Mr Wooster had so many friends, if only he were able to witness their concern, thought Jeeves) and again and again, they were struck by the rigidity with which Jeeves continued his everyday life. He left a weeping Mr and Mrs Little in the sitting room in order to press Mr Wooster's evening trousers, Mr Fink-Nottle was shown into a room where a breakfast was laid out on a table, going thick and stale and Mr Glossop, when telephoning his commiserations, was asked if he had a message for Mr Wooster on his return.

Following Dahlia's visit, Jeeves began to glimpse that same parting look in the eyes of all who visited – combined fear and the merest hint of annoyance. It was from these that, as he bowed more and more visitors out of the door, he realised what they were thinking. They thought Mr Wooster would never come back.

Partly spurred on by defiance of this terrible lack of faith, Jeeves kept little counsel with them: they enquired after his health and he answered with the same aloof smile as he always had done, and usually did not return the question. The only real dialogue he entered into was about the men who had last been seen with Mr Wooster. No-one knew who they were.

Bingo Little called in person, the day the campaign started. He looked older than his scant years that day, and rather than sprawl across his friend's sofa smoking cigarette after cigarette, he propped himself up against the wall, seeming too tired to sit or to stand. "No news at your end, Jeeves?"

"No, sir."

Bingo regarded him curiously. Had the utterance sounded strange? The young man shook his head, apparently discarding a momentary hallucination. "You've seen the papers, I take it?"

"Yes, sir." The Times, The Post and The Chronicle had all spread through the country that morning bearing a legend about a 'Vanishing London Playboy', the final admittance that a criminal investigation had been launched. Mr Wooster was officially in danger. The papers did not handle the matter delicately, and below this headline would be an unflattering picture of Bertie that Jeeves thought must have been taken when he was about eighteen, where he was depicted glancing sideways at the camera, with his arms around a large greyhound. It had been a peculiar thought to one and all, but family and friends had realised that Bertie avoided having his picture taken. Jeeves too, had pondered this point when he stared into the adolescent face. Could Mr Wooster, proud advocator of blue alpine hats and fearless donner of purple socks, be insecure of his appearance? Certainly it seemed incredible; but why else would he avoid the camera with a vigour amounting to nearly ten years of absent photographs?

_...blue alpine hats..._

"Sir?"

"Jeeves?"

"Sir, I fear I have been remiss. There is one thing I know about this sorry affair that I have neglected to tell anyone else." Suddenly, the room warped and burned. Jeeves took a moment to understand that he was crying. Before he did, Bingo's hand was gripping his shoulder and his voice soothing him in some way that was inarticulate but heartfelt. "Before he disappeared, I rebuked Mr Wooster for electing to wear a purple-banded fedora. A trifling matter it may seem to a third party, sir, but I found myself wanting in tact and-" He fell silent. There was no use rambling into incoherence.

"Jeeves," said Bingo, levelly, "do you really believe that?"

"Sir?"

"Mr Wooster thinks awfully highly of you – as we all do – and most highly of that hat, but I think that if things between you and he were irretrievable, he would most likely give you the boot and return to his own home, rather than leave you in it."

That stung. And yet, it was entirely true, Jeeves saw. All of a sudden, he felt flushed, overexposed... _idiotic_. He had revealed, in saying this, a quality Mr Little would be sure to view as immense selfishness – he had literally believed, until now, that he himself could have driven Mr Wooster to disappear. This was ludicrous. His master was a self-possessed adult, he would not be afraid to enter his own home over a row about a hat. Guilt almost engulfed him. There was nothing left now but to understand that something terrible truly had happened.


	3. Chapter 3

Debris was sprawled across the floor. Newspapers were laid open at their fifth page, bearing headlines like 'Fruitless Hunt For Missing Playboy' and 'Two Weeks In – No Leads For Missing Man'; sheets were ripped from notebooks that were obscured by lashings of copperplate scrawls. _Dark bohemian man?_ they said, _Left club between 10 and midnight?_ The collection concealed the kitchen tiles, as though in a torrent of restless thoughts, it had burst from Jeeves' brain. But in pride of place was an article on a broadsheet that lay at his feet as he stood taking it all in numbly: 'Witness in Wooster Hunt Speaks to Police'.

"Do you know this waitress, sir?"

Bingo surveyed the mass of dredged torment before them with an uneasy shiver. He himself poured over every printed word, hoping to find some nuance that would lead him to his friend, but he found them too painful to keep. They referred to Bertie as 'an idle rich' who was last seen 'drinking at a nightclub for the privileged'. "I do," he said at length. "Miss Raisbeck, she's worked at the club all the time I've been there. She is a reliable girl, as far as I can tell."

"You trust her statement, then, sir?"

"Yes." There was a silence, made all the more poignant by the heavy, dark eyes that Jeeves turned on him. "Come Jeeves," he added. "It gives us some hope, doesn't it?"

"Sir, I confess that I envy your ability to be hopeful about the fact that Mr Wooster was last seen on the verge of an altercation with two men who had previously been forcing their company upon him."

"Come, come! Have you thought, perhaps these chappies came to speak to him-"

"To sit either side of him, and one of them to stroke his face as he 'became increasingly nervous', sir?"

"And he found himself about to get in a tricky situation with them and legged it to Paris or something!" Bingo finished. He voice was slightly raised. "What is so peculiar about that? Done it before, hasn't he?" Jeeves looked at him with no expression, but still Bingo felt himself curdling under the gaze. "I'm dashed grateful! To hear this, it means we know he may have _chosen_ to leave. He chose, God dammit, HE CHOSE," he ended in a roar, throwing his arms up uncontrollably as though his nerves rebelled suddenly against the tension. Two weeks of not knowing.

Jeeves awaited the aftermath calm. Mr Little clutched at his hair, his face lined, his eyes reddened. "I am sorry, sir. I know you are greatly distressed about these events."

"I miss him, damn it," hissed Bingo. He met the monochrome eyes of the adolescent Bertie at his feet. "We were at school together... My best pal in the world, I -"

"Yes, sir," said Jeeves, and his voice was darker. They held each other's eyes; in recent days the class-divide had thinned almost to transparency.

"I love him, Jeeves," said Bingo. "And I'm not ashamed to say it."

A stab pierced Jeeves' heart, but he merely closed his eyes.

"I know it must disgust you," Bingo went on. "At Eton, the... the _sex_ was pretty much taken for granted, there were no girls, you had to. But you could never love each other, you see? You had to let everyone know that it was..."

"Ersatz, sir?"

"Yes. Otherwise you were... _perverted_. But Bertie and I loved each other like brothers before we went to Eton. All the _sex_, it was just this way we had of comforting each other, there was never anything lustful about it. What I'm trying to say, is that you mustn't resent us for it. I know I'm married. And I dread to think about romance with anyone but my wife. Sometimes when she goes off on trips to her publishers, or goes somewhere to research a story, I can't help it. I feel alone, and Bertie's the only one whose love can make me better, like it did at school, when I missed my parents. And then sometimes he needs me, and I can never refuse him. He's just so innocent and – beautiful."

"Yes," said Jeeves. "Yes he is." Mr Little's words were not entirely comforting, though: the shadows of these men hung over the room like imprints on Jeeves' soul.

"Have I disgusted you?"

Jeeves shook his head. "No, sir. Despite my views on extra-marital relations, I understand the comfort you speak of, and I am immensely grateful that Mr Wooster has someone who can provide him with it. I do hope you will forgive my churlishness on the matter, I do not myself, disapprove of homosexuality. That said, society does, and reform does not seem to be on the horizon. Mr Wooster is also very dear to me, and I would hate to think that he should be subject to the bigoted criticism of society."

"You mean, if he were to be – indiscreet?"

"Precisely, sir. Mr Wooster is given to show his feelings openly. If I may make so bold, sir, I have feared that as you withdraw this affection from him, due to your marriage, he will publicly try to seek it elsewhere. This may well lead to unnecessary anguish and heartache on his part."

Both men were quiet for a long time. Then Bingo said, "Do you think he's alive?" His voice cracked. No-one had said the words before. They made Jeeves' blood run cold, as though a body had been unveiled before his eyes.

"These men were described by the waitress as seeming, at first very strange and finally, extremely angry, sir," said after a moment's thought. That said, in my heart, I believe in Mr Wooster." His eyes tripped over the paper, resting on a line in his own hand: _Waitress – left the club nervously, pursued moments later by two men. Dark man familiar to her. Club member._

The summer city sweltered. Jeeves' starched collar wilted by lunch and a permanent smog seemed to seep up through his eyes. Slowly the relentless performance of his duties ceased to comfort him, and now to stare at the absent form of his young master seated at the table pressed a wound in his chest. Lower and lower became his mumbles of "Thank you, sir" and "Goodnight, sir" as he turned off the gaslights, the silence that followed them growing louder by the day.

He took to walking by the Drones Club at night. Scanning the faces of everyone who entered or left, he could find none who looked 'bohemian' as he understood the term. These men were perhaps wild in their habits, but kept orderly by teams of men such as himself – all had cut hair and shaved faces, and none wore velvet. It was no use, of course. The police had interviewed every single man on the premises, and none could testify to either seeing a stranger that night, or to knowing a member of that description, but Jeeves walked by more and more. The emptiness of the flat almost stifled him. The waitress had a fleeting moment in the spotlight, then yielded no more information. She had served the three gentlemen two rounds of drinks, she thought, and they left possibly at half past ten.

Everything was suffocating, everything was vicarious, everything was painful and pointless, until the telegram came.

It had no name. It had been sent from a post office on the other side of London, fifteen miles away and it said only this:

Come to 60 Albion Street and look down. Come at night. STAY AWAY FROM HOUSE.


	4. Chapter 4

He waited for the dark. Across a time that was apparently eternity, Jeeves watched the daylight fade on those printed letters that held within them the first crack of hope's dawn. Constant imaginings and re-reading could not unveil any code or hidden nuance – and yet, what an abundance of promise! He dared not name what promise it was, whether he hoped for the merest clue or a reunion; the risk of disappointment was unimaginable. His young master had not been seen nor heard from for a whole month. Evidence had ceased to come forth, until even the ravenous media had all but lost interest and Mr Wooster's own friends were beginning to murmur about "learning to move on" – in effect, that young gentleman had vanished into the London night as fog, evaporated into the air itself. Not dead, but – God forbid! – nothing serving as definite proof to the contrary, he had left in his place no room for sorrow, but a distinct halt: the flat could not be sold, nor could Jeeves seek other employment. Not that he would choose to if he could. When relatives rang, he could hear the stirring of lawyers being called forth and of deep-rooted family feuds resurfacing: Mrs Gregson called one morning inquiring in the most disarmingly sweet of tones whether Jeeves knew if Bertie's allowance was still being paid into the bank account, followed the same afternoon by a distant cousin casually mentioning that he had once sent Bertie an expensive silver cigarette case for a present, and was it still lying around the place? Jeeves replied to all such calls in the clipped, guarded manner becoming to a good valet.  
_  
Vultures_.

But Mr Wooster was _alive_, and soon they would all see, he thought, struggling to discipline his mind against raising hopes – there was the telegram! What else could it possibly mean?

Studiously had Jeeves considered his options: he was going to 60 Albion Street this very night, that much was certain. But should he tell the police? No. No, he had no idea who or what he would meet, accumulating an entourage of the flat-footed ignoramuses may upend some delicate balance of situation. Conversely, would this not be tantamount to endangering his own life?

This was of no consequence, he nodded to himself resolutely. Anything that held the prospect of ensuring Mr Wooster's safety was endurable. Should he then inform Mr Little, or Mrs Travers? No. In truth he could think of no reason at all that Mr Wooster's dearest relative and friend should not hear of this development even before he did himself. But clearly, the telegram was addressed with the one word "Jeeves", and in that, along with the torrent of emotions it hurled at him, he felt the merest hind of pride. Whatever this was, whoever it was from, it was for _him_ clearly marking him out as the next of kin in these curious matters. For so long had Jeeves thought of Mr Wooster as someone intrinsically dearer to him than an employer – a nephew, perhaps, or a young brother, or a _son_ or – anyway. This telegram was proof that this was not a whim of middle-aged sentiment.

At some point of this reverie, Jeeves looked down to savour the message once more, and found the paper illegible – the kitchen was, at long last, steeped in darkness.

The slow eternity cracked around him and crumbled – time began to move very quickly. He was standing before he knew it, dressed in his coat and hat a second later and in less than a moment, streaming along the twinkling streets of Mayfair. He could not take a cab, he felt static, he was nervous energy itself. Ever since that horrific day the police had launched their enquiry, taking food has seemed near-impossible to him, so that now walking fifteen miles through the temperate night air felt akin to flying: numbed against hunger and pain, all that met his senses was that glorious dawning hope towards which he seemed to be rocketing.

And there he was. It was an uncertain time later, when the streets of this upper-class suburb were in a slumber. Four-storey Georgian houses towered around, with dimly-glowing windows that were now going out one by one. _Number sixty_. It was not unlike any other – genteel, elderly, with shuttered windows and an elaborate set of double-doors at the side where the carriage would once has resided. Jeeves' first instinct was to ram his fists on the door and demand answers; his blood was boiling up inside him knowing that the answer to what had become of Mr Wooster could be behind these very walls. But what had the telegram said? Look down.  
Jeeves obeyed instantly, but could see nothing at all worth looking for. Beneath his feet was a cobbled pavement, just behind him a narrow road, just before him a terraced row of cellars with tiny windows that were unlit.

...Cellar? Jeeves looked again with a longing anguish at the front door, and then to the rows of latticed windows where golden lights shone from slender nooks in wooden shutters. Everything was so beautifully homely. Why then, did the cellar have this ring of portend about it? His tired eyes focussed on it ardently in the gloom. A cellar. By God. A terrible thought struck him. The telegram had been unsigned. Supposing it really was a cruel hoax of some kind? With one resigned look about the empty refined street, Jeeves knelt by the cellar door and gave it a quick rap with his knuckle.

He was dejected. Almost sardonic in his faded hopes.

Then.

There it was. It was pale, but against the black of the window, unmistakeable – long, spindly – a hand! A hand sprawled to full span across the window, and Jeeves, insensible with joy spread his own palm against the pane. The other fingers were slender and longer than his own. Could it be? If it was, how could he possibly leave to get help? How could he leave the poor young man in a blackened cellar? "Mr Wooster?" The words caught in his throat, bundled with sobs. The longer he watched that hand and strained his eyes in a futile attempt to see anything more, the greater his conviction grew. It was, he gasped to himself. It must be.

Goodness knows how long he sat besides that window, pressing his hand against the other, waiting to see something else, _anything_ emerge from the darkness.

Finally, something did. A large square of light, and within it, a shadow, metamorphosed in the middle of the street. Jeeves looked up, leaping to his feet as he did so. What met his eyes was a sight that would haunt his dreams long after most of this adventure had faded into history. A small, sombre face with large cheekbones and heavy eyes, gazed down at him from the third floor, imprinted surreally upon a brightly lit room. Slowly, whilst Jeeves met its shadowy eyes, it raised a small hand in a lace glove to its mouth and blew from a cigarette holder, deliberately, pensively, staring at the man down in the street. At one point, the face turned away, to something in the room behind and Jeeves saw rich, red hair gathered in a bun. When the face returned, the small hand shot up again, this time, in a species of greeting!  
Before Jeeves could reciprocate, the shutters were closed and he was left standing in the street shrouded in utter darkness.

"Mr Wooster is alive!" The words rang joyfully through the icy walls of the police station, where Jeeves faced Inspector Graham across a desk.

"What?" said the Inspector.

Jeeves recounted the story of the previous evening. He had waited all night by the station for the opening of its doors at eight o'clock, so that now the words burst from his lips in such exultation that he could barely stop for breath. Meanwhile, Graham observed him with a gimlet eye. Was this the same man who had shown him round that Mayfair flat a mere four weeks ago? Well undoubtedly it was, but something astounding, something very profoundly basic had been misplaced within this servant. It was not that he was unfed and unrested (though these had also taken an unmistakeable toll), rather it was the intrinsic manner of his – that solid, steady dignity of convoluted speech and effortlessly restrained expression – was inexplicably more forced. The tale he wove was delivered in a thick diction as though, without an idea of tone or context, he was simply pronouncing an array of words. These were punctuated at intervals by mechanical nods or the raise of a hand, but no more illustrative than a waxwork model. It appeared as though he were some great actor, who, having played the same part every night for twenty years, has ceased to evoke its meaning, and perform vicariously.

As the recount drew to a close, Inspector Graham shook his head regretfully. "You got a telegram – unsigned – that led you to a house where you saw a hand in the cellar window and a woman in a bedroom?"

"Precisely, sir," replied Jeeves, but a little colder this time, because it scarcely seemed to convey the significance of the night's events.

"Mr Jeeves – have you any family you could be staying with?"

"...Sir?"

"Maybe a sister or an aunt who would be prepared to put you up until this case concludes?"

Jeeves' face grew stony; he surveyed this Inspector below heavy, loathing eyelids. "Am I to infer, Inspector, that you doubt the validity of my claim?"

"All I'm saying is that to pursue this prank would be wasting police time. It's unfortunate, but people often prey on vulnerable gents like yourself for cheap thrills – most likely this woman at the window read about the case and orchestrated this for the amusement of her young friends. So, my good fellow, why don't you go and stay with the family, get yourself some rest and try to forget this whole incident?"

"You will not visit the address, sir?"

"I cannot be seen to waste police time on a prank played on a mad servant!" the Inspector bellowed, suddenly finding himself on his feet.

Then he looked into Jeeves' eyes and felt sorry – the man was close to tears. Graham heaved a sigh, massaging his temples. "I am sorry, Jeeves. You clearly haven't been told, but the police are no longer treating Mr Wooster as a missing person – there's never any point after a matter of a fortnight. We are looking for a body."

"But if you would only go to this address-!"

"I'm sorry, Jeeves!" the Inspector's voice rang out above Jeeves' weakened tone. "If you do not leave, I will have you escorted off the premises!"

Jeeves left. Looking back at the station, he closed his eyes and made himself a silent promise. "No matter what it takes, no matter what happens, I shall go back tonight and find the man I love."


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Hi everyone, thanks for your patience! A new chapter is here. Please review! I know this one lacks a lot of emotional depth, but it will all be restored next time.

* * *

Bingo Little threw himself at the front door in ecstatic anxiety. The half-second he waited to be admitted was almost too long to bear. "Jeeves!" he came close to screeching as he pursued the valet through the hall into the living room. "You said you have seen him?"

"I have sir, and the police will do nothing."

"But where is he?"  
"He is entrapped, sir, at an upper-middle-class townhouse fifteen miles from here, in a cellar." Bingo's face almost fell through the floor; Jeeves observed it with steadily concealed indignation. "I am aware, sir, that this revelation is a shocking – may I say, incredible – one. Nevertheless, I believe in it vehemently." A stillness passed though the room.

The day was a long, increasingly stifling one, tinted with a rosy hue of the approaching autumn that filled the room solidly from wall to wall. It caught Jeeves' sharp features and set red lines on the crevices of his face, cutting into the pallor bestowed on him by weeks of anxiety. Bingo suppressed a shudder. "You have seen him, though?"

"I have, sir. On approaching the residence, I was able to observe a hand pressed to the glass of the cellar window."

The air that Bingo had crammed into his lungs with excitement eked out in something that Jeeves thought, unbelievably resembled a sigh.

"I had hoped, sir," ventured Jeeves, "that you might accompany me tonight?"

Bingo's eyes flashed out of despondence into fear. "You're not thinking of going back?"

"As I said, sir, the police will make no effort to investigate the line of evidence. I have no conception of what lies inside that house, but I am clear of my conviction: I will find Mr Wooster. I had hoped that the constabulary would indulge me to this ends, apparently in the misapprehension that it formed part of their duties, but nevertheless, he will not stay in danger while it is in our power to extricate him!"

These words should have stirred Mr Little: indeed, they nearly did, but at the last moment, the fire that flickered in his chest had, he felt, to be stamped out. Instead, another element prevailed and he began to weep. "Jeeves," he implored. His voice trembled. "I appreciate the strain that you're under, but _please_, can't you for the sake of all his family and friends, _stop_?"

"Sir?"

"It does his memory no good, Jeeves. There are dozens of people who need to grieve for him and can't, because you keep this idea going that it's up to us to resurrect him from some unknown..." he broke. His face crumbled noiselessly, and tears began to run.

Jeeves observed this with no little sympathy, but still, he felt, this was a time not for self-indulgent emotions, but for stiff upper lips and actions. "Am I to take it, sir, that you believe Mr Wooster is-" No. The word must not be uttered. Silence resounded through the flat. "Very well, sir. Might I enquire," he choked his voice to a lighter tone, "if you still have in you possession, Mr Wooster's rifle? I gather he lent it to you when you last went clay shooting together."

"You're not having a bloody gun either!" hissed Mr Little, who had already reached the front door.

"Very good, sir."

But even in the matter of criminal danger, Jeeves was not a fool. It would, he knew, be vital that he was armed. For the rest of the day, he scoured the flat in a blind neediness – there was nothing to be found that was of any more defensive use than his own meat clever.

This time the dark was longer in falling. From sunset he patrolled the area around Hyde Park, meditating heavily upon the fact that beneath the usual garb of a gentleman's gentleman, there was a knife of near-fatal potentialities tucked in his belt. The thought also came to him that, in fact, to save Mr Wooster was probably part of his professional duties. Had he not learned in his training, over a decade ago, that his life would be devoted to that of his gentleman? By devoted, they had probably not intended that it was taken so literally as – He smiled inwardly. Still. The rosy haze he invariably felt on picturing the young master's face could not quite mask the tinny war-cry that was being trilled by his nerves.

By eight o'clock, he once more faced the door of that towering Georgian home. No lights were in the windows. It fell back under the first touch, rippling away into the dark unknown, and Jeeves found himself in the very hallway that led him back to his master. At first he trod silently. God only knew what lay behind all of these doors – Mr Wooster's kidnapper could be at any side of him, or in any shadow.

The cellar door would be reached through the kitchen. All there was, then, was to make an intrepid and vitally silent journey to the back of the house, opening the door without being seen. For a moment it was gloriously simple, but still the kitchen knife appeared to gleam in anticipation. Jeeves stared at it, only realising seconds later that his hand had removed it from his belt unconsciously. Thusly armed, he made his way through the deep hall into the bowels of the house. From around him now, images were beginning to emerge from the gloom: photos, paintings, sketches. Beneath a whimpering gaslight, a charcoal nun hobbled on lame legs with malady and pain wrought across her face; inches along the wall was a watercolour child resting her naked body against the gild frame. Jeeves scanned the walls about him – corpses, deformation, rape: every inch made him stronger with hardened malice to the invisible enemy.

"I knew you'd come."

The voice had rung out before he knew it. He flung himself through three hundred and sixty degrees before realising that it came from aloft. And there she was. Leaning over the second-floor banister, the woman he had seen at the window not two days since, whom he had nearly suspected to be some manner of illusion. Yet there she was, solid and earthly, and watching Jeeves with approving interest. She was not the defiant villainess of the detective story, nor the whimpering victim; she looked neither angry at Jeeves' presence, nor relieved. In fact, the steady face she observed him with could almost be said to be empathetic. All of this Jeeves registered in a second and said, in an equally toneless voice, "Where is he?"

To this, she may have replied, but if she did her words were snatched from the very air by a roar of tearing wood. The door crashed apart thoroughly from its hinges and landed, trampled beneath innumerable black boots that stormed their way to all corners of the deathly house.

* * *

Mrs Constance Scholfield cried when she heard from the police. Two officers had been sent to deliver the news; they stood either side of her, where she half-collapsed onto her piano stool, eyeing each other awkwardly. As soon as she was able, she thanked them, and excused herself to make arrangements for the care of her three daughters with the nanny.

In less than an hour, she and her suitcase sped towards the English capital in a police car.

Together they trod the vast steps into the cold, white building.

Together they paced the corridors, where their tread echoed intrusively on her tightly-strung nerves.

Only when admitted to her last destination was Connie allowed her privacy, which she exploited by weeping copiously. She was in a tiny, stone-walled, white-washed chamber. Stretched out on an iron bedstead was something dreadful. It was scarcely the colour of a human – the weeks spent below the ground, she reasoned, but still, the sickly tint of grey almost resembled something other-worldly. The skin seemed to be the wrong texture too, clinging to the skull and the spidery bones of the hand – starvation of course, she told herself, steeling the Wooster nerves. She took a step closer. But what she saw in the face was hardest to bear. It was hardly a face at all. There was swelling on the right eye and brow; just below, it gave way to the rubble of a smashed cheekbone. A huge splint made of wood and bandages obscured the nose. Both lips were split. Around his forehead, some substantial wound had been inflicted, because it was bound copiously.

She could take no more.

"Bertie!" she cried, and the limp figure in the bed reached out a hand.


	6. Chapter 6

"We thought it important that you know what had befallen my brother," said Mrs Scholfield solemnly. She was a tall, tawny haired woman, who, despite having a face that could easily be called plain, had enough of her family's sartorial panache and elegance that on opening the flat door to her, Jeeves had immediately known who she was. They had held brief introductions on the telephone before, but due to her husband's military sojourns in India, Mrs Scholfield had not visited her brother in years. "My Aunt Dahlia wanted to speak to you, but she doesn't like to leave his side."

"I understand perfectly, madam," nodded Jeeves. He bowed her into sitting room, where she glanced about her uneasily, taking in the tokens of her brother's life - reviewing the faces in the photographs and the aspects of taste that had gone into the furnishings. Did all this belong to little Bertie, whom she always saw in her mind's eye in short trousers with jam smudged on his face? The room she viewed was not quite the pale, diseased room that Gussie and the Littles had seen on their visits since Bertie's disappearance; cleanliness and minimalism reigned again. Perhaps the white sheen of the place struck her as just a little too exact, a little too forcibly perfect, for in recapturing his poise when learning his master was alive, Jeeves looked upon the mess with acute shame and self-reproach. Numbly, she sat herself somewhere and faced the servant, whose loyalty and talents reached her through the grapevine as the stuff of legend. "I am glad to see that you weren't charged."

"Thank you, madam," replied Jeeves, masking his uneasy embarrassment. When the police had stormed 60 Albion Street, the first thing they found was the middle-aged servant of the missing man, looking tired and ragged, nervously clutching a kitchen knife. As the house shook with the numerous cries of its inhabitants, and torrents of officers swept into its recesses, he was forced out to the nearest station, with one last cry ringing in his ears: "Bring the ambulance, sarge, it's horrible!"

"Dahlia and everyone have assured me that you would only act in my brother's best interests. We are all terribly grateful. And Mr Little is so sorry that he risked getting you into trouble."

Jeeves bowed gracefully toward Mr Little's remorse. "Mr Little, I am sure, madam, was also acting out of good intentions. Not to mention that without his insistence, the police may never have searched the house at all. Might I enquire," he asked, in a paler tone, "as to the state of Mr Wooster's health?"

Connie turned her eyes to the carpet. Her Aunt Agatha had prepared her for the fact that brother and servant were unseemly close, and to take a firm stand if the latter brought up the subject of visiting him in hospital. Hospitals, said Agatha, were places for families. "Bertie is very weak," she replied softly. "He has not said a word of sense in the week since they found him - it's hard to see him like this. He cries," she dabbed her eyes in empathy, "he cries so much. When I speak to him about what happened he tells me it was all his fault and that if I know the truth I'll turn my back on him! Apart from that he only talks about when we were children; about mother, and piano lessons and things." She cast her bright eyes into his, then away again.

"I am indeed sorry to hear that, Mrs Scholfield," Jeeves said. His voice hardly reflected the weight that his dejection carried. "Mr Wooster has always been the most kind and understanding employer one could wish for. Are the physical wounds healing?"

"You haven't been told much about them, have you, Jeeves?" she said.

"No, madam."

"The family have had a discussion, Jeeves, and we wish to keep the publicity over the case to the absolute minimum; but many of the family believe that you should be informed of the true nature of the crime. Will you sit down?"

"I am happy to stand, m-"

She shook her head darkly. "You will need to sit down." Jeeves sat beside her awkwardly, trying to maintain an aspect of servitude. "Jeeves, you know that my brother was kidnapped on a drinking session by two men who followed him from the club and beat him, and took him to that house?"

"Yes, madam."

"Do you know why they wanted him?" Jeeves swallowed hard. He had hoped vigorously against this: it was not unknown for men of Mr Wooster's wealth to be held captive for ransom, or until they gave their bank details, but ever since glimpsing those visual horrors mounted on the hall walls of the house, something hideous had plagued the undercurrent of his thoughts. "These men were inverts." Mrs Scholfield drew herself up as she said it. To her, Jeeves saw, this explained the whole dreadful tale – through no fault of her own, she was nurtured in a society where inversion denoted criminals. "My poor brother has been able to say very little to the police. It is thought he was badly concussed during most of his ordeal, but the initial tests when he was taken into hospital showed _internal damage_."

Jeeves closed his eyes. Rape. His dear, innocent, trusting boy had been raped. Why? Had they seen that he was innocent – had they thought it amusing to exploit his lack of intelligence? "Who are these men, do they know?" His tone was unusually gruff, but Connie didn't seem to notice.

"One of them is a complete oik," she replied equally gruffly. "Once worked at the club as a doorman and was sacked for alcoholism about two weeks later. That's how he prayed on Bertie. And," she added, "how he forged the signature of one of the members so that his presence couldn't be traced. His name is Neilson. The other man is apparently a prolific socialite, though I've never heard of him, called James Anstruther. The woman you saw was his sister, and that was their house. All three are in still in the cells."

"The lady, too, madam?" said Jeeves. It made him slightly sorry to think of the woman, barely out of adolescence, who did nothing to hinder his attempt to save Mr Wooster, had been placed in prison.

"The lady too," nodded Connie, with the indiscriminate hate of the loving sister of a rape victim. "He was tortured, as well! At least... He does not speak to us, or to the police, but he was so badly beaten... When they found him, his ankles had been shattered so he couldn't escape. He's lost most of the sight in his left eye. There was a stab wound in his abdomen that nearly punctured his stomach!" She paused, to dab her eyes with a handkerchief. "In that house," she rasped, "they saw the most Godless things. Pictures of dead children, and bodies of little animals that had been set on fire. It's thought that Anstruther's some kind of sadist and that – that he was going to kill my brother in order to get some sort of _thrill_. But it wasn't enough to stab him, was it? They wanted to beat him and starve him until he died slowly. The sister said Anstruther wanted him to die in his arms."

Jeeves closed his eyes again. He needed, for an instant, to deny the existence of the horrors of the world. When he reopened them, Mrs Scholfield was watching him with a note of sympathy. She breathed portentously. "Do you know why I was sent here, Jeeves?" The two eyed each other plainly with gazes that penetrated the class divide for an instant, during which Jeeves nodded his head. "I've been sent to tell you that my brother is doing well, but that you might do well to seek other employment." For a moment, her eyes fell past him, onto the low table in the centre of the room. On it stood a great stack of newspapers. They bore headlines like "Missing Wooster Saved - Family Arrested"; "Police Speak to Two Men, One Woman in Conclusion of Wooster Mystery"; "Missing Man Held Prisoner in Cellar"; "Albion Street Gang to Stand Trial". The only notable headline of recent days that was not present was "Servant Cleared of Involvement in Master's Kidnap". Jeeves had found it humiliating. On seeing them, Connie's liquefied heart softened still further - the agony that this valet must have undergone to glean any meaning from the gorging media! When she spoke again, it was through a dawning smile. "Jeeves, it has been said to me (we don't need to guess by whom) that you and my brother are unhealthily close for parties of a professional relationship. What do you say to that?"

Jeeves coughed quietly. "I am fond of your brother, madam, but I do not consider our relations to be beyond those of an average household – Mr Wooster and I merely share a good deal of mutual respect."

Connie nodded. "Would you like to see him?"

"Madam?"  
"I'm about to return to the hospital if you would care to join me. He has asked for you."

Jeeves swallowed a smile. This was more than he had dared to hope for. But the family suspected him, displays of emotion could not be risked. "If Mr Wooster has vociferated a desire for an audience with me, it is not within my capacity as his personal gentleman to refuse."

Connie blinked. She was blessed with the same breadth of vocabulary as her sibling. "Good-o," she said, after a moment.

Waving aside Jeeves' offers, Connie drove her large sports car through the metropolis. Her driving was that of a woman who has spent the past five years tracking tigers in the jungle and smacking a riding crop on her thigh whilst laughing stridently. It occurred to Jeeves that it would take only a matter of fifteen years for her to complete her transition into being Mrs Travers. After her initial shyness at the flat, she strode elegantly into the hospital, along seemingly infinite corridors, brushing brusquely past nurses and doctors until she pushed a door back, and Mrs Travers herself flung her arms around Jeeves. He started, but quickly stopped himself. The rigid confines of the class divide were a barrier that Mr Wooster and he had been thinning through for the past years were suddenly transparent: there was, he realised, no place for propriety when someone they all loved had been very nearly murdered.

Mrs Travers said some words of thanks, Mrs Scholfield said something back to her and they faded into the white background as ghosts. Jeeves was alone in the little room, _solitude á deux_. Quite still, on the metal-frame bed, as if stretched out in a morgue, was his master. His Bertie. For a moment, all was rigid as a tableaux, while Jeeves saw wildly in his imagination, himself falling to his knees before that bed, begging for forgiveness, begging for love, and somehow breathing the life back into that limp, emaciated body. The moment passed. Jeeves paced forward, sombrely, respectfully and coughed a polite cough.

The brilliant eyes, one of them swollen, one of them robbed of peripheral vision by a violent blow to the head, split open. "Jeeves!" he cried.

And with that voice, strummed like a string on his heart, Jeeves fell to his knees before the bed. But before he could beg for love, that very emotion swelled his throat. A thin, cold hand rubbed its way through his hair, and Mr Wooster said, "They got rid of my hat."

Jeeves raised his head, only to hang it deferentially. "I am sorry, sir! My dear boy, I shall never speak to you like that again!"

"Isn't it funny, Jeeves, that you said I should look like an effeminate gangster, when lo and behold, two effeminate gangsters came and attached themselves to me!" He should have readied himself for the fact that Mr Wooster would be heavily sedated. Whatever was said now could hardly be thought to be reliable. Despite this, seeing him, seeing him alive with even the merest potential for recuperation set Jeeves' heart alight. Carried away under the knowledge that Mr Wooster may never remember, he kissed his master on the battered lips. Bertie merely smiled dimly.

"My apologies, sir," Jeeves said, just to be sure, "I am overjoyed to see you."

"I know, you're in danger of smiling."

"Has there been any indication of when you will be able to return home?"

"Jeeves!" cried Bertie again, this time grasping urgently for the valet's lapel and pulling him in confidentially. "They don't want me to return home – they think I'm mad, they want to put me away!"

"Who, sir?!"

"Aunt Agatha says I'm a lost cause; the doctors say unless I comply with them, I will never be allowed to leave."

Jeeves eased Bertie's hand away from his lapel, but in doing so, found that the young man now grasped his own hand. He steeled himself again. He grasped back. "What do they connote by comply, sir?"

"It's horrible, Jeeves! They wake me up at seven with a cold sponge bath and then they force me to eat about six plates of cold toast. They stick a ruddy great needle into me, then they leave me alone in the dark until the police get here at nine."

"The police are still questioning you, sir?" This time, he received no reply. Mr Wooster leaned back into the pillows, straining his battered visage in a reflection of pain. "I am sorry, sir," said Jeeves. "I spoke without due respect to your suffering."

"Those men, Jeeves," said the young master, and his eyes glittered in a way that Jeeves had never witnessed before. "Are they still locked up?"

Jeeves flinched. The lack of the boy's usual array of complex slang was dishearteningly absent. "The men and the woman are under lock and key, sir, you are completely safe."

Lulled, Bertie rested his head back. Then, through a fog of concussion and medication, he murmured, "Woman? Lily isn't in prison, is she?"

Jeeves came as near to gulping as he had ever come. "Miss Anstruther is being held, sir."

Bertie groaned faintly. "I liked Lily," he said.


	7. Chapter 7

Dear all, I've received quite a lot of requests for a next chapter, it being more than a year since I updated, but I want to reassure you all, this fic WILL be completed! I can't believe how the time has flown by while I've been nursing the next ideas and I never intended to give this up, I think there's at least another 3-4 chapters to go! So hang tight and your patience will be rewarded :) xxx


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